Louis Round Wilson
Louis R. Wilson was born in Lenoir, NC, Dec. 27, 1876. He
completed his undergraduate degree at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 1899. He received a Master of Arts in 1902 and Ph.D in
philology (dissertation on Chaucer's relative constructions) in 1905, both
from UNC.
He became University Librarian in 1901 and joined the faculty
as a German professor in 1905. He also began teaching courses in library
science. In 1904, he helped to found the North Carolina Library
Association and drafted the law which established the North Carolina
Library Commission in 1907. He was co-founder of the Southeastern Library
Association and served as its president from 1924-1926. He was also
president of the American Library Association in 1935.
While serving as University librarian, Wilson increased the library's
collection from 32,000 books in 1901 to 235,000 in 1932. He
founded the University of North Carolina Press in 1922, and since then the
press has become one of the most respected university publishing houses in
the United States. He was the founder and an editor of Carolina's Alumni
Review magazine and was instrumental in the construction of UNC's first
student union (then housed in Graham Memorial). Wilson organized the
North Carolina Collection materials into a special department of the
library, and along with history professor J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton began
a program of soliciting documents and historical material from around
North Carolina. From these, the Southern Historical Collection and
Southern Folklife Collection was formed. The collections have become a
an important center for research on the American South and has significant
holdings from each Southern state.
In 1932, he left Chapel Hill to become dean of the University
of Chicago's Graduate School of Librarianship. He became one of the most
sought after surveyors of libraries and helped several large libraries with
impressive collections organize and catalog their material so it was more
accessible. His students at the University of Chicago went on to become
head librarians at some of the most prestigious libraries in the United
States.
Wilson returned to Chapel Hill and the University in 1942 and
worked at the University's libraries until his retirement. He died in
1979 at the age of 103.